Re: Responsible advertising and responsible tourismYour Advertisement for the Lion Park in Johannesburg on your 'confirmation ticket' email, and your 'in flight magazine', is endorsing the canned hunting industry and the death of thousands of lions every year. The cub petting industry is just the beginning of the cycle of abuse to these magnificent animals. Your advertisement says it is OK to use cruel methods of removing the cubs from their mothers, using them to make vast sums of money and then sell them to be brutally shot by hunters. Your advertisement is endorsing the Lion Park and sending all the wrong messages to unsuspecting tourists visiting our country. Every year thousands of people visit or volunteer at facilities where they can interact with lion cubs. The Lion Park is a major player in this industry. Please watch the expose of the Lion Park by the 60 Minutes team of CBS News, their absorbing expose of the links between cub petting and canned hunting. This exposes the lies that lion farmers use to conceal their sordid, commercial activities. Watch here... http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-lion-whisperer/which aired to 18 million people around the world.

Every day, a captive bred lion is killed in a canned hunt in South Africa.The truth is that these lions are the product of factory farming. The cubs are taken from their mothers so that she can produce another litter in six months time, as opposed to two years time, if she had the opportunity to raise her own offspring.These factory farmed cubs are often kept in unsuitable cages with little regard for their social requirements.For a fee you can play and have your photograph taken with them. Or volunteers work at lion breeding facilities under the impression that these cubs will be returned to the wild.Because they are human imprinted and have been deprived of growing up in a natural social group they cannot be rehabilitated or sold to game reserves, nor can they ever be released into the wild.The horrors of cub pettingWhat possible enjoyment can they derive from being pawed, picked up and being posed all day long, day after day, until they have grown too big? These inbred, human imprinted and psychologically damaged animals have absolutely no conservation value. They will be returned to the breeders and they will be used in a hunt.They cannot be rehabilitated into the wild.They cannot be used to supplement dwindling wild populations.They can be used as canon fodder in the canned hunting industry.Every reputable animal welfare organization in the world considers the practice of using lion cubs for human playthings ascruelty.Lion cubs are by their very nature not gentle animals.Lion cubs used for petting opportunities are normally trained not to scratch or bite.They are beaten and deprived of sleep.

These cubs are deprived of proper nourishment to keep them small so that they can be used in the cub petting industry for longer. These cubs are sometimes even drugged!Remember NO CAPTIVE BRED LION HAS EVER BEEN RETURNED TO THE WILD.We urge you to practice responsible advertising to unsuspecting tourists visiting SA.Please see the expose of the Lion Park on 60 Minutes, which aired to 18 million people around the world. See our blog on the rescue of two circus lion cubs from Spain whose health was so poor that they were close to death.http://www.cannedlion.org/blog/my-heart-stopped-when-i-saw-themPlease do not support this brutal industry.